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Morning Roundup - August 6th

A 24-year-old Canadian woman is facing a federal charge after she was allegedly arrested near the border in Whatcom County with 577 pounds of marijuana.

A U.S. Border Patrol unit stopped Brandine Phillips in a pickup truck as she was about to turn onto Highway 542 near Maple Falls early Tuesday morning. Charging papers say the marijuana was packed in 12 hockey bags.

According to the documents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had been tailing Phillips for days, and watched her drive from the Nooksack River Casino up a remote, one-lane, dead-end road toward the Canadian border. The ICE agents began following her again at a distance after she drove back down the road, and that's when the Border Patrol unit intervened and pulled her over.

From the Washington Post, on more funding for anti-terror teams for the Washington, D.C. Metro system:

The federal government will pay almost $10 million for the Metro Transit Police to put 20 officers on five anti-terrorism teams, Metro officials announced Wednesday.

The department has a Special Response Team, said spokeswoman Cathy Asato, but the force has not had specific teams focused on counterterrorism. A Department of Homeland Security transit grant program will provide the money to create them.

"They're going to recruit from within to form these anti-terror teams," Asato said, "then we'll recruit 20 new officers to fill their spots."

The 420-member force will increase by almost 5 percent as a result of the hires. Metro said that the four-person units will increase law enforcement visibility in stations and that the teams would increase random patrols of Metro facilities and vehicles, respond more quickly to suspicious packages and gather intelligence that might be shared with federal law enforcement officials.

Public Events11:00 AM EDTImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton will announce major reforms to ICE’s immigration detention system during a media teleconferencePotomac Center North500 12th St. SW